"Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain;
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain:
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Than those two mourning eyes become thy face.
Billy stopped breathless, but confident that he had said the right thing this time.
"It is very pretty!" said the lady with a sigh—"but the other is true. What a queer little boy you are to repeat poetry like that! How old are you?"
"I shall be nine at Easter. Then I go to school. Where are you going when the hunting is over? It ends early here; we never kill a May fox—the crops, you know."
"I don't know where I shall go, probably to London, or to Paris, or——" here she murmured something in a language Billy did not understand, then, turning to him, said dreamily:
"'That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again.'
You see I know something of your poetry too! But, wherever I go, I shall be lonely—lonely and sad."
There was a sound of tears in her voice. Billy, infinitely distressed, felt that this melancholy lady must be cheered and encouraged, so he said stoutly:
"I've never seen you alone before. You've generally got Mr. Rigby Folaire, or Captain Garth, or Lord Edward, or all of them."
"That's just it," said the Baroness, and Billy was more puzzled than ever. Feeling that he must get on to more comprehensible ground, he asked,